Side (pronounced see-day) was a city on the southern coast of Cilicia (modern-day Turkey) first settled in the 7th century BCE by immigrants from Cyme, an Aeolian municipality to the north near the kingdom of Lydia. Its name means 'pomegranate' in Greek. The first settlers may have been a mixture of Luwians and Hatti and spoke a language (now known as Sidetic) which has not yet been deciphered. Side was Hellenized after the conquest of Cilicia by Alexander the Great (l. 356-323 BCE) and significantly developed by Rome after it became involved in the region c. 103 BCE.
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